Capitalist Cattle Farming in the Eastern Low Countries (c. 1470-1570)

Bridging the ‘Commercialisation’ and ‘Property Relations’ Approaches to Rural Economic Change

Abstract

This article documents and explains the rise of capitalist cattle farming in the sixteenth-century eastern Low Countries. The case of the two parishes of Zeddam and Netterden shows that by 1570, a small group of graziers, specialised in the fattening of Danish-bred oxen, had come to hold a prominent place in the local rural economy. In some localities, their pastures represented more than 40 per cent of the total value of taxed landholdings. When conceptualising capitalist farming based on its internal logic of accumulating capital through exchanging commodities, these graziers can be considered to be capitalist farmers. Because capitalist cattle farming in the eastern Low Countries emerged in a different context than the typical capitalist tenant farmer in the western areas of the Low Countries, the case offers a fresh perspective on the causal factors allowing a capitalist logic to take root in farming. The rise of the capitalist graziers in Zeddam and Netterden was the combined consequence of the expansion of long-distance trade networks, local geographical conditions, and local property relations. The studied case thus shows how the two currently dominant explanatory models focused on ‘commercialisation’ and ‘property relations’ can be integrated to explain the rise of capitalist farming.